Hello all,
I'm knee-deep in planning for our family's upcoming March trip. I'm writing this pre-trip report partially to pass the time without going crazy from waiting and parially because the experience of planning this particular trip has been an interesting one.
First, let me introduce the players.
Obviously, there's me. I'm the Disney fan in the family. More specifically, I'm the Disney parks nut. I had been to MK as a kid and Epcot as a teen. But I didn't get crazy about Disney until I went as an adult. My wife was a big fan of Mickey Mouse. But she'd never been to WDW. So when I planned our honeymoon, I figured we had to go to WDW. To be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to it. A few years later, I am here on the forums and my wife tolerates my Disney "obessession".
Then there's my wife. I've pretty much told her story as relates to WDW. Honestly, she would prefer a more relaxing vacation than Disney World. Her idea of a vacation would be somewhere she can watch TV and swim. Yes, she can do both of those things at WDW. But I'm constantly dragging her out to the theme parks.
Our oldest daughter is 4. She'll be almost 5 at the time of the trip. This will be her thrid trip to WDW (a fact which surprises me). She has some memories of the first two trips, but I think it's mostly from hearing stories about them more so than actually remembering.
And our youngest daughter is still an infant. She'll be nearly a year old at the time of the trip and is toddling around pretty well. She's not yet walking, but she's really close. This is her first official trip, although my wife was pregnant with her on the last trip. (And yes, my wife was pretty miserable that trip).
In a supporting role, we have my younger brother. He was a cheerleader in college and taught cheerleading for many years after that. Now, he has moved into a more professional career. But he still judges cheerleading competitions from time to time. One of the reasons he does this is that he gets free trips to WDW.
We have been with my brother on one of his free trips in the past. A few years ago, he had a room to himself and a couple of tickets. So we flew down and crashed in his room and used his extra tickets. It was a bit of a stressful trip. Since we weren't making reservations ourselves, it was practically impossible to plan in advance. We didn't even know for sure if we were going until the week before the trip.
Although we couldn't beat the price, I decided not to do this kind of trip again. It was too hard to plan. And the room was somewhat cramped with three adults and a child. Our daughter didn't sleep through the night at the time and I felt bad about waking my brother up during his busy judging schedule.
This year, my brother had an interesting proposition. He wasn't sure, but he thought he might be able to swing a free room and tickets for us. Naturally, I was interested. Also, this would be the last year we could go on one of these March trips without having to pull my oldest daughter out of school. So, I figured we'd give it one last hurrah if he could work out the details.
Unfortunately, we couldn't get much of a commitment out of the company holding the tournament. When my brother asked for details about what would be available, they were non-responsive. Eventually, we decided to start looking at other vacation options since our free Disney vacation seemed unlikely.
With two young children, vacation options were limited. Our oldest daughter doesn't travel very well, so long drives were out. And with two kids in daycare, we couldn't afford to spend a lot of money on a vacation. But we definitely wanted to go somewhere. My wife remembered that a relative of hers had a time share in FL. She inquired about renting it.
As it turned out, that time share was 4 miles from Walt Disney World. While it wouldn't be free, it would be affordable. And it was far more swank than a room at WDW. My wife was thrilled at the prospect of staying at such a luxurious vacation destination even if it most likely meant visiting some of the local theme parks.
Our good luck continued. The cheerleading competition finally got back to my brother about what they could offer him. The free room was out, but they could provide some free Park Hopper tickets. The discounted time share combined with the free park tickets added up to a pretty affordable vacation.
The big expenses would be air fare for three and food. Staying offsite meant that we could prepare much of our own food, but we would need to rent a car and pay for parking. Still, it all seemed doable. I was a little nervous about the lodging being out of my hands. But my wife trusted that it would all be taken care of.
Once we got word that the time share was available during the week of the competition, I started pricing plane tickets. (I should note that the free tickets are special tickets for the competition. They are only valid that week.)
Due to spring break, air fare in March was unusually expensive. However, I did find two days that were pretty reasonable. If we left on a Wed and returned on a Wed, we could save a few hundred bucks off any other dates during the time frame our tickets were available. I don't remember exactly how much, but I believe it was around $600.00.
After quickly confirming that the time share would be available Wed-Wed, I went ahead and bought the tickets which were around $200 a piece. While this was hardly a bargain, it was the best price I think I've ever gotten for plane tickets to Orlando so I wanted to lock it in place before the prices went up.
(Looking at ticket prices today, I needn't have bothered. Prices are about the same and have gone down for some of the surrounding dates. Although the dates I've picked are still the cheapest and are still the same price.)
You can probably see where all of this is going. After locking in the plane tickets, we got word from my wife's relative that the time share was not available for those dates. Quickly, I called the airline. The price of changing the travel dates was ridiculous. It ate up all of the savings on the time share.
Thankfully, Disney is discounting like crazy on rooms these days. So I immediately went to Mousesavers.com for discount codes. Turns out, they had the same deals on the WDW website. Of offers available, I selected 35% off a moderate resort. The price was right along the lines of our discounted time share. It was actually cheaper when you factor in the rental car and parking.
The only moderate resort available at the discount was POR. That suited me just fine as I have always wanted to stay there. Still, I decided to play around and see what else I could get. I had a scary moment when the website no longer showed POR as available either. For a few minutes there, it looked like I'd have to shell out for a deluxe or stay at a value resort. My wife would freak out either way.
Fortunately, I was able to get the offer again on POR. Not sure if that was user error or if POR temporarily became unavailable. But either way it scared me into wanting to commit right away.
My wife confirmed that the time share just wasn't going to work out. I ran the numbers with her. Our primary concern about staying on property was the cost of the food. We had planned to trim our budget by preparing our own food. That would not be an option at POR.
I decided to price the dining plan. Of course, this meant buying park tickets as well. Even though we had free tickets provided, they were only 3-day tickets. They could be upgraded, but since they were not regular tickets they did not have the built-in savings per day. Each additional day would cost $50. So we decided not to upgrade the free tickets.
When we had planned to stay off site and rent a car, we had also planned an excursion to Sea World (which my wife loves). Since Sea World was no longer an option without the rental car, we decided to use the money we would have used for SW tickets to buy 1-day Disney tickets so that we could qualify for the DDP.
We don't actually figure to save any money with the DDP. But there is a certain peace of mind knowing what we will spend on food. The discounted room, the extra tickets and the DDP all fit within what we had allocated for the trip - just barely.
Our new plan presented a few challenges. For one thing, it was a bit of a scramble securing ressies 6 weeks out. As you can imagine, most of the popular places (Chef Mickey, O'hana, etc) were unavailable. However, I had set up a few ressies when we had originally planned the trip. We even had breakfast scheduled at Cinderella's castle.
(I'm glad I can now pay for that with table service credits instead of out-of pocket!)
After a few sessions of ressie hunting, I was satisfied that our table service credits wouldn't go to waste. We definitely aren't maximizing our bang for our buck though. With an impatient and somewhat picky 4-year-old, we opted for lots of buffets and character meals rather than sit-down meals where we'd have to order off menus and wait for our food to come.
We now had 4 days worth of tickets and a total of 6 full days of vacation not counting travel days. However, we may yet be able to stretch those 4 days into 6 days worth of tickets. Frequently on these trips, my brother is able to scrounge up partially used tickets for additional days.
Even if he is unable to do so, I came up with a reasonably affordable way to turn our 4 days into 6. The three 3-day PH passes we are getting from the competition are all usable by adults. So, if it looks unlikely that additional tickets will be available, I will upgrade my daughter's ticket to a 6-day PH and my wife and I will split the 9 days of park admission between ourselves.
I'm still working out what our exact itinerary will be. But the plan is to keep things very loose. With a pre-schooler and an infant, we aren't going to be going commando this time (although my wife has her doubts about my ability to do so). With 6 days to tour the parks, we should be able to take our time and still see everything we are interested in seeing.
I'm also interested in taking our first trip to the Boardwalk. We've never been on any of our previous visits. My wife just loves DTD, so I think the Boardwalk will apeal to her a lot - maybe even moreso. The plan is to visit the Boardwalk on our arrival day rather than touring any of the parks.
So, that's where we stand now. I'm still hammering out some minor details. And I'm actively preparing our oldest daughter for seeing the characters and riding rides. We've got to find a home for the family dog while we're away (I'm hoping not to have to shell out for a kennel.) But most of the big puzzle pieces are in place.
After the time share, I'm still a little worried about our the park tickets. My brother assures me we'll have three 3-day park hoppers at a minimum. But I won't feel 100% confident until I have the tickets in my hand. If we get there and the tickets don't materialize, I will have scheduled a vacation during spring break for no good reason.
But I'm confident that I'm worrying for nothing in that respect. My brother has been on this trip many times and he's never had a problem scoring tickets. Still, you can't help but be a little nervous, you know?
More developments as they come up until we leave in March. I'm sure when we get back I'll post a detailed trip report as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading!
I'm knee-deep in planning for our family's upcoming March trip. I'm writing this pre-trip report partially to pass the time without going crazy from waiting and parially because the experience of planning this particular trip has been an interesting one.
First, let me introduce the players.
Obviously, there's me. I'm the Disney fan in the family. More specifically, I'm the Disney parks nut. I had been to MK as a kid and Epcot as a teen. But I didn't get crazy about Disney until I went as an adult. My wife was a big fan of Mickey Mouse. But she'd never been to WDW. So when I planned our honeymoon, I figured we had to go to WDW. To be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to it. A few years later, I am here on the forums and my wife tolerates my Disney "obessession".
Then there's my wife. I've pretty much told her story as relates to WDW. Honestly, she would prefer a more relaxing vacation than Disney World. Her idea of a vacation would be somewhere she can watch TV and swim. Yes, she can do both of those things at WDW. But I'm constantly dragging her out to the theme parks.
Our oldest daughter is 4. She'll be almost 5 at the time of the trip. This will be her thrid trip to WDW (a fact which surprises me). She has some memories of the first two trips, but I think it's mostly from hearing stories about them more so than actually remembering.
And our youngest daughter is still an infant. She'll be nearly a year old at the time of the trip and is toddling around pretty well. She's not yet walking, but she's really close. This is her first official trip, although my wife was pregnant with her on the last trip. (And yes, my wife was pretty miserable that trip).
In a supporting role, we have my younger brother. He was a cheerleader in college and taught cheerleading for many years after that. Now, he has moved into a more professional career. But he still judges cheerleading competitions from time to time. One of the reasons he does this is that he gets free trips to WDW.
We have been with my brother on one of his free trips in the past. A few years ago, he had a room to himself and a couple of tickets. So we flew down and crashed in his room and used his extra tickets. It was a bit of a stressful trip. Since we weren't making reservations ourselves, it was practically impossible to plan in advance. We didn't even know for sure if we were going until the week before the trip.
Although we couldn't beat the price, I decided not to do this kind of trip again. It was too hard to plan. And the room was somewhat cramped with three adults and a child. Our daughter didn't sleep through the night at the time and I felt bad about waking my brother up during his busy judging schedule.
This year, my brother had an interesting proposition. He wasn't sure, but he thought he might be able to swing a free room and tickets for us. Naturally, I was interested. Also, this would be the last year we could go on one of these March trips without having to pull my oldest daughter out of school. So, I figured we'd give it one last hurrah if he could work out the details.
Unfortunately, we couldn't get much of a commitment out of the company holding the tournament. When my brother asked for details about what would be available, they were non-responsive. Eventually, we decided to start looking at other vacation options since our free Disney vacation seemed unlikely.
With two young children, vacation options were limited. Our oldest daughter doesn't travel very well, so long drives were out. And with two kids in daycare, we couldn't afford to spend a lot of money on a vacation. But we definitely wanted to go somewhere. My wife remembered that a relative of hers had a time share in FL. She inquired about renting it.
As it turned out, that time share was 4 miles from Walt Disney World. While it wouldn't be free, it would be affordable. And it was far more swank than a room at WDW. My wife was thrilled at the prospect of staying at such a luxurious vacation destination even if it most likely meant visiting some of the local theme parks.
Our good luck continued. The cheerleading competition finally got back to my brother about what they could offer him. The free room was out, but they could provide some free Park Hopper tickets. The discounted time share combined with the free park tickets added up to a pretty affordable vacation.
The big expenses would be air fare for three and food. Staying offsite meant that we could prepare much of our own food, but we would need to rent a car and pay for parking. Still, it all seemed doable. I was a little nervous about the lodging being out of my hands. But my wife trusted that it would all be taken care of.
Once we got word that the time share was available during the week of the competition, I started pricing plane tickets. (I should note that the free tickets are special tickets for the competition. They are only valid that week.)
Due to spring break, air fare in March was unusually expensive. However, I did find two days that were pretty reasonable. If we left on a Wed and returned on a Wed, we could save a few hundred bucks off any other dates during the time frame our tickets were available. I don't remember exactly how much, but I believe it was around $600.00.
After quickly confirming that the time share would be available Wed-Wed, I went ahead and bought the tickets which were around $200 a piece. While this was hardly a bargain, it was the best price I think I've ever gotten for plane tickets to Orlando so I wanted to lock it in place before the prices went up.
(Looking at ticket prices today, I needn't have bothered. Prices are about the same and have gone down for some of the surrounding dates. Although the dates I've picked are still the cheapest and are still the same price.)
You can probably see where all of this is going. After locking in the plane tickets, we got word from my wife's relative that the time share was not available for those dates. Quickly, I called the airline. The price of changing the travel dates was ridiculous. It ate up all of the savings on the time share.
Thankfully, Disney is discounting like crazy on rooms these days. So I immediately went to Mousesavers.com for discount codes. Turns out, they had the same deals on the WDW website. Of offers available, I selected 35% off a moderate resort. The price was right along the lines of our discounted time share. It was actually cheaper when you factor in the rental car and parking.
The only moderate resort available at the discount was POR. That suited me just fine as I have always wanted to stay there. Still, I decided to play around and see what else I could get. I had a scary moment when the website no longer showed POR as available either. For a few minutes there, it looked like I'd have to shell out for a deluxe or stay at a value resort. My wife would freak out either way.
Fortunately, I was able to get the offer again on POR. Not sure if that was user error or if POR temporarily became unavailable. But either way it scared me into wanting to commit right away.
My wife confirmed that the time share just wasn't going to work out. I ran the numbers with her. Our primary concern about staying on property was the cost of the food. We had planned to trim our budget by preparing our own food. That would not be an option at POR.
I decided to price the dining plan. Of course, this meant buying park tickets as well. Even though we had free tickets provided, they were only 3-day tickets. They could be upgraded, but since they were not regular tickets they did not have the built-in savings per day. Each additional day would cost $50. So we decided not to upgrade the free tickets.
When we had planned to stay off site and rent a car, we had also planned an excursion to Sea World (which my wife loves). Since Sea World was no longer an option without the rental car, we decided to use the money we would have used for SW tickets to buy 1-day Disney tickets so that we could qualify for the DDP.
We don't actually figure to save any money with the DDP. But there is a certain peace of mind knowing what we will spend on food. The discounted room, the extra tickets and the DDP all fit within what we had allocated for the trip - just barely.
Our new plan presented a few challenges. For one thing, it was a bit of a scramble securing ressies 6 weeks out. As you can imagine, most of the popular places (Chef Mickey, O'hana, etc) were unavailable. However, I had set up a few ressies when we had originally planned the trip. We even had breakfast scheduled at Cinderella's castle.
(I'm glad I can now pay for that with table service credits instead of out-of pocket!)
After a few sessions of ressie hunting, I was satisfied that our table service credits wouldn't go to waste. We definitely aren't maximizing our bang for our buck though. With an impatient and somewhat picky 4-year-old, we opted for lots of buffets and character meals rather than sit-down meals where we'd have to order off menus and wait for our food to come.
We now had 4 days worth of tickets and a total of 6 full days of vacation not counting travel days. However, we may yet be able to stretch those 4 days into 6 days worth of tickets. Frequently on these trips, my brother is able to scrounge up partially used tickets for additional days.
Even if he is unable to do so, I came up with a reasonably affordable way to turn our 4 days into 6. The three 3-day PH passes we are getting from the competition are all usable by adults. So, if it looks unlikely that additional tickets will be available, I will upgrade my daughter's ticket to a 6-day PH and my wife and I will split the 9 days of park admission between ourselves.
I'm still working out what our exact itinerary will be. But the plan is to keep things very loose. With a pre-schooler and an infant, we aren't going to be going commando this time (although my wife has her doubts about my ability to do so). With 6 days to tour the parks, we should be able to take our time and still see everything we are interested in seeing.
I'm also interested in taking our first trip to the Boardwalk. We've never been on any of our previous visits. My wife just loves DTD, so I think the Boardwalk will apeal to her a lot - maybe even moreso. The plan is to visit the Boardwalk on our arrival day rather than touring any of the parks.
So, that's where we stand now. I'm still hammering out some minor details. And I'm actively preparing our oldest daughter for seeing the characters and riding rides. We've got to find a home for the family dog while we're away (I'm hoping not to have to shell out for a kennel.) But most of the big puzzle pieces are in place.
After the time share, I'm still a little worried about our the park tickets. My brother assures me we'll have three 3-day park hoppers at a minimum. But I won't feel 100% confident until I have the tickets in my hand. If we get there and the tickets don't materialize, I will have scheduled a vacation during spring break for no good reason.
But I'm confident that I'm worrying for nothing in that respect. My brother has been on this trip many times and he's never had a problem scoring tickets. Still, you can't help but be a little nervous, you know?
More developments as they come up until we leave in March. I'm sure when we get back I'll post a detailed trip report as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading!
